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Premium account services have crept into nearly every top tier MMORPG, but does the ability to change your name, server, appearance, race, and even gender for a fee impact players' attachment both to their characters and to the game in general? We'll compare the availability and pricing of premium account services across ten of today's hottest MMORPGs and take a quick look at how these options affect players in Loading.. Change at a Cost.

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Logging back into the Age of Conan account this week to re-up my subscription for the Rise of the Godslayer expansion, I was suprised at how many premium account services were available - server transfers, more slots, a name change, but all for a price. I decided to compare the availability and pricing of the most common of these services among our Pulse top 10 games for the last 30 days, and did with the fully patched help of Ben, Sardu, and Shay on several games (thanks!).

Account services (right)

Game (down)

Server Transfer

Character Transfer
(to another account)

Name Change

Additional Character Slots

Faction Change

Race Change

Character Re- Custom- ization

Gender Change

Game Time Card for Virtual Currency Conversion

Guild Name Change

World of Warcraft

$25

$25

$10

$30

$25

$15

$15

EverQuest 2

$25

$15

$25

$25

(1g, 20s)

$15

Age of Conan

$20

$10

$15

Dungeons & Dragons Online

$24.95

$9.95

$12.95

EVE Online

N/A

$20

$10

$10

(mkt price)

Lord of the Rings Online

$24.95

$9.95

(Advent- urer's Pack)

$12.95

Vanguard: Saga of Heroes

Warhammer Online

(free - restricted)

Aion

$9.99

$9.99

$14.99

$19.99

EverQuest

$25

$15

$25

$25

$15

Some notes: all prices are USD. Where account services require currency conversion (i.e. dollars for points), I picked the most unfavorable conversion (meaning lowest points for least dollars) for comparison's sake. Many of these account services have additional restrictions, especially character transfers to another account and guild name changes, but some server transfers were free to certain servers (i.e. EQ2 transfers to Exchange servers).

A quick analysis of what we find here: being the nominal pioneer in premium account services, it's no surprise that WoW offers the most premium services (7) followed by EverQuest 2 (6) and EverQuest (5), while Warhammer Online and Vanguard offer the least account flexibility. Server transfer and Name Change are the most ubiquitous premium account services, followed by Re-Customization and Gender Change. The least common services were game time card to currency conversion (EVE still stands alone among the Pulse Top 10), account transfers, and guild / corp / legion / etc. name changes. Most games appear to have followed WoW's lead in pricing, though Age of Conan consistently undercut WoW's prices by $5 and EverQuest and EverQuest 2 went $5 over WoW's price for a name change. Faction changes are the most expensive service ($25 - $30), followed by server transfers ($20 - $25). Name changes are the least expensive service at $9.99 - $15.

What does this mean to MMO gaming? Clearly premium account services are increasing in prevalence and popularity, and many devs we've talked to view it as a win-win - players get more flexibility and developers get a new revenue stream for comparatively little development and customer support effort. Detractors usually complain that the prices are far in excess of the cost of these services (that is, unless the game's account support tools are terrible) or that using such services make initial character and server decisions less weighty, encouraging players to change their appearance or shard rather than make the best of the cards of their circumstances.

Both are valid concerns, and the second complaint addresses a major part of the fun in most RPGs, but 1) the latter complaint is addressed by the former, in my opinion, since the price may make you think twice about changing things on a whim, and 2) once one game offers premium account services, other games start to look backward or inflexible for not offering such services.

What's your take? Is there a sound correlation between the number of premium account services a game offers and its success? Do these options effectively kill the golden goose - weakening a player's attachment to a character or game in general? Share your thoughts in the Loading... forum, and have a great weekend!

Shayalyn's Epic Thread of
the Day

Odds are that if you play MMOGs you play other games as well. That's why we have a PC & Console Games forum.
And it's why, nearly a year ago, Ralsu began today's epic thread to
highlight the Game Deal of the Day. Check near the end of the thread
for a free (and, need I say, awesome) game download from Steam. Bookmark this thread for future game deals, and don't forget to share your own finds!

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